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Apple Still Doesn't Beat Pandora

ITunes Radio is a lackluster competitor. The Beats deal won't change that.

May 30, 2014

Pacific Crest

We remain buyers of Pandora Media after Apple announced the acquisition of Beats Music and Beats Electronics for a total of $3.0 billion.

The existing Beats subscription service is not a significant competitor to Pandora (ticker: P). The Beats service has only about 200,000 paying users compared to 76 million Pandora monthly active users. Further, the Beats subscription service (along with other on-demand...